1. Technical Field
The embodiments of the present invention relate to an apparatus and a method for access point selection, more particularly to an access point selection apparatus and method that can increase the utilization of wireless resources in a wireless network environment that has a relative high density of mobile users.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent times have seen significant advances in wireless network technology, as well as rapid increases in market demand for related services. Accordingly, there has been much growth in the use of the wireless Internet based on various wireless devices such as smart phones, laptop computers, PDA's (personal digital assistants), etc.
A wireless LAN terminal refers to a user terminal that connects to a WiFi access point (AP) in a wireless LAN based on IEEE 802.11 to enable use of the wireless Internet. Here, the matter of which access point is selected by a wireless LAN terminal is of great importance, as it is a factor that determines the quality of the wireless network.
According to the related art, when a wireless LAN terminal selects an access point for connecting to a wireless network, the wireless LAN terminal may transmit a scan request signal and receive scan response signals from surrounding access points that respond to the scan request signal. A wireless LAN terminal may identify the scan response signal having the highest signal strength (based on the received signal strength indicator (RSSI)) from among the scan response signals received, and may select the access point that transmitted this scan response signal.
That is, in wireless communication, when there are more than one AP's, a terminal may communicate with the AP having the highest data rate, but according to the related art, the AP may be selected based only on signal strength, so that the problem of congestion may occur as many terminals concentrate on one AR.
In other words, whereas the typical method available is to connect to a particular access point based on the RSSI, measure the packet throughput, and disengage the connection if the packet throughput is too low, this may degrade the performance of the application running on the terminal (for example, with service disruption during handovers) and may exacerbate the congestion at the access point (for example, because unnecessary traffic is caused by connecting to a particular access point for a speed test).